Black box machine learning models are currently being used for high stakes decision-making throughout society, causing problems throughout healthcare, criminal justice, and in other domains. People have hoped that creating methods for explaining these black box models will alleviate some of these problems, but trying t…
Black-box risk scoring models permeate our lives, yet are typically proprietary or opaque. We propose Distill-and-Compare, a model distillation and comparison approach to audit such models. To gain insight into black-box models, we treat them as teachers, training transparent student models to mimic the risk scores ass…
Spanning attack improves black-box attacks with unlabeled data.
problem Query inefficiency in black-box attacks due to high input space dimensionality.
method Proposes spanning attack by constraining adversarial perturbations in a low-dimensional subspace via an auxiliary unlabeled dataset.
result Significantly improves query efficiency of black-box attacks.
New method optimizes black-box functions using generative models and Wasserstein distance.
problem Optimizing black-box functions with stochastic responses in high dimensions.
method Deep generative surrogate models and Wasserstein distance for uncertainty estimation.
result Method outperforms state-of-the-art methods in robustness to function shape and stochasticity.
Adapts model-based advice to stabilize black-box policies for nonlinear control.
problem Stabilizing machine-learned policies for nonlinear control with limited model information.
method Proposes an adaptive λ-confident policy to combine black-box and model-based advice. result Proves the stability of the adaptive λ-confident policy and its competitive ratio. Interpretable machine learning has become a strong competitor for traditional black-box models. However, the possible loss of the predictive performance for gaining interpretability is often inevitable, putting practitioners in a dilemma of choosing between high accuracy (black-box models) and interpretability (interpr…
NP-Attack reduces query counts for black-box adversarial attacks.
problem Efficiency of black-box adversarial attacks is low.
method Uses Neural Process to characterize image structure and find adversarial examples.
result NP-Attack significantly decreases query counts.
We present an interpretable companion model for any pre-trained black-box classifiers. The idea is that for any input, a user can decide to either receive a prediction from the black-box model, with high accuracy but no explanations, or employ a companion rule to obtain an interpretable prediction with slightly lower a…
New method improves black-box attacks using pre-trained models.
problem Efficiently attacking black-box models with limited information.
method EigenBA algorithm leveraging pre-trained white-box model's Jacobian matrix.
result Optimal perturbations are related to right singular vectors of Jacobian matrix.
Understanding how a learned black box works is of crucial interest for the future of Machine Learning. In this paper, we pioneer the question of the global interpretability of learned black box models that assign numerical values to symbolic sequential data. To tackle that task, we propose a spectral algorithm for the …
Driven by an increasing need for model interpretability, interpretable models have become strong competitors for black-box models in many real applications. In this paper, we propose a novel type of model where interpretable models compete and collaborate with black-box models. We present the Model-Agnostic Linear Comp…
Develops method to assess feature importance in black-box models for unconditional distribution.
problem Lack of methods to analyze feature importance in black-box models for unconditional distribution.
method Approximation method to compute feature importance curves for unconditional distribution.
result Produces sparse and faithful results, computationally efficient.
P-BO reduces black-box adversarial attacks by 10x with Bayesian optimization and function prior.
problem Efficiently generating adversarial examples against black-box models.
method Prior-guided Bayesian Optimization (P-BO) with a function prior initialized from a surrogate model.
result Significantly reduces the number of queries needed for adversarial attacks.
We address a non-unique parameter fitting problem in the context of material science. In particular, we propose to resolve ambiguities in parameter space by augmenting a black-box artificial neural network (ANN) model with two different levels of expert knowledge and benchmark them against a pure black-box model.
In recent years, deep neural networks (DNN) have become a highly active area of research, and shown remarkable achievements on a variety of computer vision tasks. DNNs, however, are known to often make overconfident yet incorrect predictions on out-of-distribution samples, which can be a major obstacle to real-world de…
Many deployed learned models are black boxes: given input, returns output. Internal information about the model, such as the architecture, optimisation procedure, or training data, is not disclosed explicitly as it might contain proprietary information or make the system more vulnerable. This work shows that such attri…
The paper extends statistical inference methods for black-box generative models.
problem Understanding and validating black-box generative models without access to their internal data.
method Develops model-level statistical inference tasks using generative model representations.
result Model-level representations are effective for multiple inference tasks.
ODS improves adversarial attacks by maximizing output diversity.
problem Efficiency and effectiveness of adversarial attacks, especially black-box attacks.
method Output Diversified Sampling (ODS) that maximizes diversity in model outputs.
result ODS reduces the number of queries needed for black-box attacks on ImageNet by a factor of two.
Deep neural networks work well at approximating complicated functions when provided with data and trained by gradient descent methods. At the same time, there is a vast amount of existing functions that programmatically solve different tasks in a precise manner eliminating the need for training. In many cases, it is po…
ALFI improves likelihood-free inference for black-box generators.
problem Limitations of likelihood-free inference on black-box generators.
method Adversarial Likelihood-Free Inference (ALFI) to estimate posterior distributions.
result ALFI achieves best parameter estimation accuracy with limited simulation.
New approach improves black-box planning efficiency by discovering focused macros.
problem Difficulty of deterministic planning increases exponentially with depth.
method Discovering macro-actions with focused effects to improve goal-count heuristics.
result Focused macros dramatically improve black-box planning efficiency.
Method optimizes diffusion model generation to meet user preferences.
problem Optimizing diffusion model generation with only black-box target scores.
method Covariance-adaptive sequential optimization algorithm for black-box optimization.
result Proves superior performance in achieving better target scores.
Improves model classification accuracy in black-box settings.
problem Difficulty in inferring model properties due to limited query access.
method Introduces discriminative factorization to distinguish high-quality queries.
result Probability of chance-level classification decreases exponentially with query budget.
DiBO uses diffusion models to optimize high-dimensional black-box functions efficiently.
problem Optimizing high-dimensional and complex black-box functions efficiently.
method DiBO iterates two stages: training a diffusion model and casting candidate selection as posterior inference.
result DiBO outperforms state-of-the-art baselines across synthetic and real-world tasks.
We interpret black box predictive models using causal attribution.
problem Interpreting models trained using machine learning in high-stakes applications.
method Estimate causal effects of model inputs on output using observational data.
result Effective interpretation of black box predictive models via causal attribution.
Black-box explanation is the problem of explaining how a machine learning model -- whose internal logic is hidden to the auditor and generally complex -- produces its outcomes. Current approaches for solving this problem include model explanation, outcome explanation as well as model inspection. While these techniques …
Paper proposes a new black-box attack approach to minimize visual distortion.
problem Constructing adversarial examples that minimize visual distortion in a black-box threat model.
method Learning the noise distribution of adversarial examples to approximate the gradient of a non-differentiable loss function.
result The proposed attack results in much lower visual distortion compared to state-of-the-art black-box attacks.
There is a rich and growing literature on producing local contrastive/counterfactual explanations for black-box models (e.g. neural networks). In these methods, for an input, an explanation is in the form of a contrast point differing in very few features from the original input and lying in a different class. Other wo…
Bayesian optimization tackles non-smooth tuning problems.
problem Optimizing black-box functions with non-smoothness and limited samples.
method Proposed a clustered Gaussian process (cGP) model for non-smooth optimization.
result Improvement of up to 90% in performance for repetitive experiments.
This work addresses the situation where a black-box model with good predictive performance is chosen over its interpretable competitors, and we show interpretability is still achievable in this case. Our solution is to find an interpretable substitute on a subset of data where the black-box model is overkill or nearly …
BAR reprograms black-box ML models for transfer learning with scarce data.
problem Transfer learning with limited data and resources.
method Zeroth-order optimization and multi-label mapping techniques to reprogram black-box models.
result BAR outperforms state-of-the-art methods and baseline transfer learning approaches.
New research shows many recent defenses against adversarial examples are ineffective against black-box attacks.
problem The robustness of recent defenses against adversarial examples is insufficient, especially against black-box attacks.
method Evaluation of nine defenses on two black-box adversarial models and six attacks on CIFAR-10 and Fashion-MNIST datasets.
result Most recent defenses provide only marginal improvements in security (<25%) compared to undefended networks. This work proposes xGEMs or manifold guided exemplars, a framework to understand black-box classifier behavior by exploring the landscape of the underlying data manifold as data points cross decision boundaries. To do so, we train an unsupervised implicit generative model -- treated as a proxy to the data manifold. We …
Bayesian optimization outperformed random search in machine learning hyperparameter tuning challenge.
problem Optimizing hyperparameters of machine learning models using derivative-free methods.
method Bayesian optimization vs. random search on real datasets.
result Bayesian optimization significantly outperformed random search in held-out objective functions.
Saliency maps are often used in computer vision to provide intuitive interpretations of what input regions a model has used to produce a specific prediction. A number of approaches to saliency map generation are available, but most require access to model parameters. This work proposes an approach for saliency map gene…
Stabilizing black-box algorithms through task-oriented randomization
problem Ensuring stability of black-box models
method Task-oriented randomization
result Established rigorous theoretical foundations and demonstrated effectiveness through simulations and real-world applications
Proposes a method for explaining black-box models with nested feature attributions.
problem Making black-box models transparent and trustworthy.
method Model-agnostic local explanation method exploiting nested feature structure and consistency property.
result Accurate and consistent HiFAs and LoFAs estimated using fewer model queries.
Bayesian model explains and improves black-box estimators for class distribution.
problem Calibrating probabilistic classifiers and uncertainty quantification for unlabeled data.
method Introduced a Bayesian model approximating the ground-truth generative process, using efficient MCMC sampling.
result The Bayesian model is competitive and sometimes superior to established point estimators.
Paper advances black-box VI using flows and Monte-Carlo methods.
problem Improving automatic posterior inference in black-box VI.
method Combines normalizing flows, Monte-Carlo methods, and optimization considerations.
result Significant improvement in state-of-the-art variational inference.
LA-MCTS learns search space partition for black-box optimization using Monte Carlo Tree Search.
problem High-dimensional black-box optimization challenges.
method LA-MCTS recursively splits search space into regions with high/low function values, learns nonlinear partition and local models online.
result LA-MCTS achieves strong performance in black-box optimization and reinforcement learning benchmarks, especially for high-dimensional problems.
New methods improve black-box adversarial attacks with fewer queries.
problem Efficiently craft adversarial examples without access to gradients.
method Prior-guided random gradient-free algorithms based on biased sampling and gradient averaging.
result Both methods require fewer queries and achieve higher success rates.
Paper proposes a black-box technique to generate adversarial samples.
problem Robustness of Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) to adversarial samples.
method Black-box Momentum Iterative Fast Gradient Sign Method (BMI-FGSM) using Differential Evolution to approximate gradients.
result Achieves high success rates in generating adversarial samples and misclassification.
Paper proposes a new black-box adversarial attack using normalizing flows.
problem Adversarial vulnerability of deep neural networks.
method Proposes a novel black-box adversarial attack using normalizing flows.
result Demonstrates competitive performance against well-known black-box adversarial attack methods.
Method reformulates constrained optimization as latent space inference.
problem Optimizing black-box functions with hard constraints.
method Posterior inference in latent space using flow-based models and diffusion models.
result Method achieves superior performance across various tasks.
Orthogonal deep models defend against black-box attacks by ensuring internal representations are nearly orthogonal.
problem Vulnerability of deep learning models to black-box adversarial attacks.
method Introduce a gradient regularization scheme to encourage deep models' internal representations to be orthogonal to another model's.
result Orthogonal deep models significantly boost robustness against transferable black-box adversarial attacks.
Develops black-box methods to estimate parameters of complex models.
problem Lack of efficient methods to produce simulations for complex statistical models.
method Pre-training deep neural networks on extensive simulated databases for well-structured likelihoods. Iterative algorithm for other complex dependencies.
result Successfully estimates and quantifies uncertainty of parameters from non-Gaussian models.
tDB removes unfairness from black-box models using probability theory.
problem Mitigating unfairness in predictions from black-box models.
method towerDebias (tDB) method based on the Tower Property.
result tDB improves prediction fairness without retraining the original model.
Adversarial examples pose a threat to deep neural network models in a variety of scenarios, from settings where the adversary has complete knowledge of the model and to the opposite "black box" setting. Black box attacks are particularly threatening as the adversary only needs access to the input and output of the mode…